A Comment that Helps my Arguments

So someone didn’t read (or read and didn’t care about) my comment policy after reading an old post I linked in yesterday’s Retirement Reasons and Reminiscing Part 2 post. He left a comment on the old post (we’re talking April of 2010 here). The posting of this comment actually helps to add to my point from yesterday’s post about not thinking like most other players. I won’t approve the comment, but I screenshotted it and thought I would take a moment to rebut it.

First of all, despite the fact I blurred out the poster’s email address and IP address, let’s be clear — I know exactly who the poster is. He plays a warrior named Daxia on Turalyon. (In addition to this and, obviously, his email address and IP address, I have the guy’s name and a variety of other bits of information that I am too kind to share here, all gathered in the span of about ten minutes.)

So now that we’ve determined who this guy is, let’s look at his comments.

a) According to this dude, I am a whiny, whiny baby. Well, given that I’m in my 30s, I would have to disagree with this point. Do I whine? Sure, on occasion, as does everyone. Do I bitch? A lot, probably more than most. But “baby”? Nope, don’t think so. Yay hyperbole?

b) Someone who used to raid with me linked him to the blog. Well, based on the roster of his guild on Turalyon, this comes down to one of two people. The first is the current GM of his guild, who stepped down from raiding with Apotheosis in early November of 2011. The second is a friend of that individual, who raided with us also until about early November of 2011. We kicked that second individual’s ass out of Apotheosis in early December of 2011, after finally receiving enough complaints that were severe enough to warrant it, in the officers’ estimation. I would presume that the commenter is just a wee bit biased by the individual who had the “honour” of being the first person to be removed from Apotheosis due to behavioural issues. (The GM of the guild in question actually tweeted me a couple of weeks ago to say: “I didn’t appreciate it before, but your style of raid leadership made me a better player and I thank you. Cheers to you Kurn” so I’m guessing it was the second individual who attempted to get the poster to rile me up.)

c) I had another post berating my old guildies. Well, if you look at the other posts around April of 2010, why yes, yes I did. But I wasn’t in Apotheosis back then. That was in Wrath, when I was burning out so hard that six weeks later, I was posting about how I was completely burnt out and hated 90% of the people in that guild.

d) He claims my old guildies, the ones I was apparently berating, are now pushing heroic content with him in his guild. Hm. Ignoring the fact that the only people in that guild who ever raided with me in Apotheosis are the two I mentioned above… The armory says 6/6 normal Mogu’shan Vaults and 1/6 normal Heart of Fear. Hm. According to the World of Logs reports for the guild (corroborated by the armory), they have one Will of the Emperor kill. The logs don’t have any record of them “pushing heroic content” — literally, they have 0 recorded wipes on any heroic bosses. (Hey, fun fact, Apotheosis is actually 2/6 normal HoF, so technically, they’re ahead of them in progression. Funny, that.)

e) This blog is horrible. Well, you know, that’s a personal opinion. He’s entitled to it, sure. I’ll grant him that. No skin off my nose.

f) This might be my favourite part: “gearscore!=skill”. I’m talking about Halls of Stone, an instance from two expansions ago. And using old gearscore numbers. And this guy thinks the post is remotely relevant to current content? Oh, man. I laughed.

g) “many tanks do this” (use non-tanking gear, I presume) “because the DPS players with them are so shit that without good tank dps the instance will take 2 hours”. Hang on, wait, I’m sorry — did you just prove the point I was making in yesterday’s post about people not putting effort into how they play? Why yes, yes, I think you did.

h) “I also top the meters and clear any Mists heroic in under 20 minutes”. Well, I can’t prove or disprove this, but hey, if you can do that, great for you, although I would wager your healer is generally either raid-geared, a guildmate or cursing your name but not wanting to wait for another tank in the queue. Just my two cents on that. I could be wrong.

i) “Die in a fire.” Lovely! Thanks so much for closing with such utterly… inspirational words?

You may be wondering why give this guy the attention he obviously so desperately craves. The reality of the situation is that he inadvertently proved the point I was making in yesterday’s post and brought up a new point that I wanted to briefly address. Not only do I have very little in common with the vast majority of the playerbase in terms of how they approach their character and their play, but the vitriol displayed in his comment, especially his parting words, just reinforces to me that the vast majority of players out there aren’t people with whom I care to associate. Apotheosis has a strong set of policies about language and such and all you have to do is sit in Trade for 10 minutes on any medium to large server to see just about all of them smashed by various players (not my guildies, obviously).

So I’m tired of the playerbase in general; their continued laziness and incompetence as well as their “social skills”. I mean, really, why is it so common to see racist slurs in Trade? Why is it so common to see homophobic language? I’ve spent seven years reporting people for what I feel is inexcusable language and offensive names and I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of the “make me a sammich” jokes, I’m tired of the fact that so many people use “rape” to indicate total domination over an enemy in a video game, I’m tired of wading through the crap from trolls and jackasses.

I’m just tired of it.

Obviously, there are more people out there than the mouthbreathers such as the commenter I responded to above. This guy is not necessarily representative of everyone, clearly. But finding the people who aren’t like this guy? That’s difficult. It’s tiring. It’s draining. And it’s something I’m done with.

(Also, inflammatory comments will not be approved and will, possibly, be picked apart and mocked by me in this space. Remember the comment policy! :))

I’m not ready to quit yet but I can see the end of the road and the player base will be a major contributing factor for me. Blizzard needs to enforce their own ToS, plain and simple. They claim they do but the fact is if there were real consequences then we wouldn’t see that stuff or at least we would see less of it instead of it dominating player interaction the way it does now. All the anonymous stuff Blizz keeps adding (LFD, LFR, CRZ) makes it worse as well. Every time Blizz talks about the ‘community’ I want to throw something.

Blizzard’s decisions regarding the online world they’ve created have dramatically decreased the quality of the “community”.

Back in Vanilla and TBC, leveling to maximum level took a major investment of time. Additionally, there were no name changes, faction changes, race changes, or server transfers.

Everyone had a reason to act within social norms on their Server or live with the consequences of failing to do so. You had a reputation, just as in the real world you have a reputation with your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, and your community.

Blizzard has removed the social consequences of bad behavior at every step. Additionally, they’ve added ways for people to participate in more content on an anonymous level. How many people can remember the name of the rude DPS from a random LFD? No, the only people that stand out are so egregiously awful that they earn a special place on the Ignore list.

Blizzard has now proven that a “community” of 5 million players is no community at all. The “small town” of a server with 10k players has a real community, with social norms, reputations, and consequences. The situation now is we all live in the anonymity of the Big City, with all of its incumbent hazards.

Coming back to your post Kurn, Daxia is exactly the type of person who benefits from all of the changes made by Blizzard, while you are exactly the kind of person who does not. Sadly, Blizzard doesn’t seem to realize just how badly the situation they’ve allowed (and enabled) hurts their long-term financial interests.

The drawback to the WoW of today is that it is far too easy to be an ass or a jerk or an overt racist/homophobe and get away with it. I was in a Warsong Gulch run the other day when I reported a character for a crude sexual and political reference. What worried me more than the name, however was that nobody had reported it prior to me. In this case, we’re talking about a toon that had been leveled up to the mid-20s without a complaint. I know this because within a day of my reporting, the toon was gone from the armory.

I mean, for all of the people who saw this toon’s name, they weren’t bothered by the crude insinuations?

Kurn,
For what it’s worth, your blog was one of the few I was really aware of before I got into blogging myself, and while I know you don’t need to hear that this guy is a moron who’s just trying to score some Internet infamy by trash talking someone who’s much for important than they are, I’ll say it all same. You’ve been an inspiration to me both in my play and my blog, and I’m sorry that you had to deal with someone was uneducated and uncivilized as that. I think it’s safe to say that this plague of incivility has breached the dunes of elite guilds and spilled everywhere, ruining the game for a lot of people, and I don’t think there’s enough people to bail us out any more.

Oh kurn :( (and stupid autocorrect I mean kurn stop changing it to turn for the 4th time!!)
I have always admired you because you mean what you say. You speak for what up believe. Ok a bit scared of you too but you laughed when I said that so my fingers are probably safe for now. But I hear your frustration at the badly behaving player base that occupies this game so many of us like to play. Not that you need nor want to meet new people, but there are plenty of good people out there. Those loud attention seeking morons? Well empty vessels make the most sound. Yes the world in warcraft and the internet are full of bad people. But there are daisies amongst the weeds. And sometimes even a rose. I love how you are always against bad behaviour. It’s inspiring and I wish more were like you.

Is there a way to tell? I know i often report people in bgs and groups for being racsit/homophobic/saying rape, but all i know for sure is that they get ignored by me. I’d imagine it would take the GMs time to check logs to see about the report too. I know at times those i’ve reported are no longer on the server after a while.

“So I’m tired of the playerbase in general; their continued laziness and incompetence”
Personally, i don’t mind this as much, as long as people stick with whatever we are doing and don’t drop group at a hat. The lack of social skills ranks worlds above this. I’d take a couple hours of wipes over minutes of bigots and rape talk. Those are the ones that make me stop playing whatever game, the rude bigots and elitist jerks.

Speaking of elitist jerks, was in a headless run during the holiday, and we were breezing through it, even with a level 89 in the group, and someone kept posting recount in chat, complaining about numbers. Not the first time either in holiday boss runs. Those people are just as bad for the game in my opinion.